


in a changing age

by jestbee



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Sherlock AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-27 00:33:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21383143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jestbee/pseuds/jestbee
Summary: Phil is breathless and happy by the time they are back in the hallway of Baker Street, and as they lean against the wall, their heads beside each other, Phil thinks that he might have kissed him then.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 25
Kudos: 174





	in a changing age

**Author's Note:**

> I've been writing this for 2 years, I'm sorry it took so long I hope it was worth it...
> 
> Warnings for minor violence between main characters and depiction of a faked suicide (in the same way the Sherlock TV show did it)
> 
> If you have any qualms about Dan as Sherlock and Phil as John, [please read my very in depth analysis of that here](https://jestbee.tumblr.com/post/163567232802/i-honestly-pictured-phil-as-sherlock-and-dan-as), and then admit that you are wrong.

**2019**

Piano notes cut through the quiet of the flat and Phil rolls over in bed. It's the third night in a row and he needs to put an end to it. 

He tugs on a hoodie overtop of his pyjamas, because of course the stupid git hasn't bothered to put on the heating even though the flat is cold as ice when Phil opens the door to his room. 

"Do you know what time it is?" Phil says. 

The piano doesn't stop, the frantic notes continue to be pounded against and Dan looks calmly, and disinterestedly out of the window. "Around three in the morning I would say, give or take." 

"It is _four_ in the morning," Phil corrects him. 

"I stand corrected." 

Phil walks into the room and drops down into his armchair by the fire. He crosses one leg over the other and drums his fingers on the arm. 

"Case going well then?" 

Dan doesn't answer. He plays a quick flourish of furious notes from one end of the piano to the other. Phil doesn't recognise the tune but it's possible that it's something classical that he just doesn't know, or that its something Dan is making up. 

He hopes he isn't composing. Composing always spells trouble. 

"I'll take that as a no." 

Phil picks up the Stephen King book on the table beside his chair. He's awake now, and likely to remain that way, so he might as well read a couple more chapters. 

He gets into the story a little, soundtracked by the thumping of disjointed piano, until it stops abruptly., and Phil looks up over the top of the book. 

"I did warn you it would be like this," Dan says, swivelling around on the piano stool with a flourish. 

"You did," Phil says.

* * *

**2016**

Phil sits on the edge of his bed, tilts the camera to a new angle for the tenth time and sighs. It isn't going to happen. He glares at his own reflection in the curved glass of the lens, sees his face distorted and warped into something he doesn't recognise and knows today is going to be another bust. He puts the camera away.

_Filming a vlog about what happens to you, will honestly help you_ his therapist had said. Not likely. What kind of advice was that? Especially right after he'd gotten done telling her how mundane his days were, how standard and boring they'd become since he came back. How lonely. 

He can't hold a camera anymore, can't do any of the shots he used to. _Film a vlog._ Pathetic. Like some stupid video on a website that probably won't be watched by anyone can really take the place of an actual filmmaking career. Vlogs. They don't compare to real documentaries at all. 

This bedsit isn't doing him any favours either, and he's taken to going for walks outside, to pick up coffee or just walk in the park, anything to keep his mind occupied and away from the drab four walls he's calling home these days. At least he has walls now, but he'd be lying if he said he didn't miss looking into a blanket of stars as he drifted off to sleep.

He's treading water, he knows that, and it's almost time for him to look into getting a new job. Freelance writing perhaps, though it's not his favourite journalistic medium. Something. It's almost time. He doesn't know what he's waiting for, just knows that this is an adjustment. He's never spent much of his adult life doing the day-to-day thing, and it's difficult navigating it when he's expecting explosions around every corner. Even more so when he's hoping for one.

The walk in the park this morning is like every other, leaning heavily on his stick with the palm of his hand rubbed raw. He's still not used to it, hates how it makes him feel, and look. Like he's less than he was, dependent on something external to get by. That's never been his style. It's in his head, or so they tell him, and while he's always been a creative sort he can't quite work out how he's invented the pain he feels every time he brings his leg down but he supposes he'll leave that to the brainy types. It seems a little over his head. 

He has to be thankful though, he's seen a lot of people come off a lot worse. 

He misses it when his name is called the first time, so lost in these thoughts as he always is these days, walking in that world because this one is too dull. But he catches it when it's repeated.

"Phil?" he says, "Phil Lester?" 

He turns, which is complicated when he has the stick but he manages it nonetheless.

"Jimmy," he smiles, indicating to himself as if Phil doesn't know who he's talking about. "Jimmy Hill, we were at uni together." 

The lilt of his accent is familiar and the wave of his hair sparks a memory. Still, it's buried back in a time he's mostly forgotten about, before he was damaged by everything that came after. He remembers sharing cocktails with him and talking about boys and generally being a lot more open than he's trained himself to be over the past few years. 

"Jimmy, yes." 

"I know," he says with a dramatic eye roll, "I got so _old_" 

"No," he replies automatically. But he has, sort of, they both have. 

"So what are you doing now?" he asks, continuing the conversation for him so he doesn't have to think of what to say. This small talk thing doesn't happen very often these days. "Last I heard you were abroad documenting people getting shot." 

He says it like it's a surprise, because it was. It had been out of character at the time, Phil knows that, but it isn't now. 

"I got shot," he says simply.

He notices the look of embarrassment cross Jimmy's face, the few seconds of flustered concern. He agrees to get coffee with him and sit on a bench and stare out at the mostly empty park just to prevent him from getting any more upset. Getting shot is just a reality for him, but he knows for those still tucked here in their safe corner of the world it can come as a bit of a shock to hear that these things actually happen, to someone you vaguely know even.

"So you still reporting then?" Phil asks, because it's probably his turn to keep up the conversation. 

"Teaching now," he smiles, shaking his head "Bright young things like we used to be." 

He remembers it, like a dream. He laughs when he does because it seems like the appropriate response. 

"What about you? Just staying in town 'til you get sorted?" 

Phil nods, "I can't afford London now I've let the film go."

He had to let a lot of things go, get used to the fact that they won't happen anymore. This is just how it is now. Injured and useless, unable to hold a camera even. He's been put back out into the world to be no good to anyone. 

"Ah, but I bet you can't stand to be anywhere else, that's not the Phil Lester I know." 

"I'm not the Phil Lester you--" 

There's the stupid tremor now, rearing its ugly head. His right hand, his trigger finger. The one they trained him to use before they'd let him go out there. It's shaking, from disuse or just preparedness he doesn't know. Nerve damage maybe. He rolls his shoulder, flexes his fingers around the heat of his coffee cup. Jimmy notices. 

"Couldn't Martyn help?"

Phil shakes his head, Martyn has done enough already and Phil isn't used to relying on anyone that isn't covered in camouflage and sand. 

"That's not going to happen." 

"I don't know," Jimmy replies honestly, "Get a flatshare or something?" 

He's always been like this. So insistent on helping, like Phil's problems were his just because they were friends. There's camaraderie in the civilian world too, he suddenly remembers, he doesn't need to share the imminent threat of death with someone for them to help him. It's what he's used to though. Accepting it when he's unable to do anything in return seems like a faux pas. 

"Come on," he says with all of this floating through his head. With the nightmares and the lack of sleep and the way he sometimes reaches for his hip in the dead of night like he's searching for something, something tucked out of sight in his desk drawer. "Who'd want me for a flatmate?" 

Jimmy lets a grin slide onto his face, like he's holding a very fun secret close to his chest. "You're the second person to say that to me today." 

The way the mirth dances in Jimmy's eyes is enough to pique Phil's interest. It's looking to be the most exciting thing that's happened to him in a long time. So while he's not putting much stock in this excursion leading anywhere he'll actually want to go, he goes along with it. 

"Who was the first?" 

Being back in his old university stiffens Phil's posture, brings out the military bearing he'd picked up from watching clip after clip of young men dying. It's as if he's trying to prove he's gone somewhere and done something since he left, despite the fact that he's returned injured and slow, limping his way through the halls.

"Bit different from my day," he notes.

Jimmy leads him not to the corridors of their old building, but to a different one entirely. This one holds a modern, spacious lab with a swinging door Phil almost lets hit him in the face as they come through it.

"You have no idea," Jimmy says as a voice from the corner of the room pipes up.

"Jimmy, can I borrow your phone? There's no signal on mine." 

Phil didn't even notice him when they first came into the room, he has no idea how. Once he does notice the tall brown haired man hunched over a microscope on the far side of the lab, he can't tear his eyes away. 

"What's wrong with the landline?" 

The guy wrinkles his nose in distaste, as if there would be nothing worse than having to use something as archaic as a phone plugged into an outlet. 

"I prefer to text," is the answer he gives, but Phil imagines there's more to it than that. Prefers to avoid talking to anyone, probably. 

"Sorry," Jimmy says, though he doesn't really sound like he is, "It's in my coat." 

Their coats are in Jimmy's office, where they'd stopped off before coming here. It's a nice office, the odd personal touch scattered about it so that Jimmy can feel at home with all the hours he spends there. Phil had spotted a picture of Jimmy and another bloke with their faces pressed together and had wanted to ask him about it. He's trying to get out of the habit of asking people things. It isn't his job anymore.

It had been a nice office though. Phil wonders what it must be like to view your workplace as somewhere inviting. He imagines having a desk one day, perhaps with a photo of a loved one propped in the corner. He doesn't know who that would be. It's a nice image, but he isn't sure it's one he wants to be aiming for. It's so removed from everything he's used to.

"Uh, here," he hears his own voice say, "use mine." 

His hand stretches out with his phone already proffered and it doesn't shake in the slightest.

"Oh," the man says, turning to him finally. "Thank you." 

Their fingers brush as he takes the phone and Phil snatches his hand away as the other man glances down while he types. Phil watches the way his curly fringe falls into his eyes and tries to stop himself lingering on the expanse of his shoulders or the dip of his neck. It's just too much, to be thinking about all of that right now, but it's nice to know he's still capable. 

"That's an old friend of mine, Phil Lester" Jimmy is saying, filling in the social niceties for both of them, since neither seems inclined to do it themselves.

"Afghanistan or Iraq?" 

The phrase is uttered with such assurance it takes Phil a moment to realise he's being spoken to. 

"Sorry?" 

"Which was it," he continues, barely glancing an eye sideways as Phil to confirm who he's addressing. "Where you were… filming. Afghanistan or Iraq?" 

He sounds vaguely bored, like the notion that he's asking something he couldn't possibly know is just a boring run-of-mill activity. As he looks back at the phone, Phil turns pleadingly to Jimmy, begging him to offer any context at all for why this man knows these things. 

"Afghanistan. Sorry, how did you…" Phil doesn't mind giving him the information. He does mind being interrupted from finding out about how this perfect stranger could know he'd been to either of the places by someone coming in the door behind him. 

"Ah, Chris. Coffee, thank you" the guy says distractedly, handing the phone back to Phil and accepting a steaming cup from the guy that's just walked through the door.

The guy who must be Chris shuffles in with a grumpy look on his face, like he resents having to bring this man coffee at all, but finds he has to. The enigmatic stranger sips, and makes a face, abandoning the cup with a thud on the desk the moment he's swallowed. Phil watches Chris's face fall and leave the way he came.

"How do you feel about the piano?" 

Phil can barely keep up now, apparently he's switched back to talking to Phil now Chris has left. He hasn't picked back up where they left off though, seemingly happy to let that go and move on to something equally as confusing. 

"I play the piano when I'm thinking, sometimes I don't talk or go outside for days on end, would that bother you? Potential flatmates should know the worst about each other." 

Phil takes a steadying breath because now he's really lost. He sets his mouth in a straight line because everything he knows about the world, everything he's been seen and documented and experienced, tells him that if someone you don't know knows a lot about you, it's probably not a good thing. Instead, he searches for a simple solution. 

"You told him about me?" Phil asks Jimmy, but knows as soon as he asks that he wouldn't have had a chance to.

"Not a word." Jimmy looks mischievous, like he knew this would happen. 

Phil isn't panicking. He isn't letting the hot claw of suspicion move up his neck but he is wary, of a trick or malice he isn't sure, but something. 

"Then who said anything about flatmates?" Phil says. He glances at his shoes, tests the weight on his bad leg just in case. He probably doesn't need an exit strategy, but he's always got one eye on the door and thinks he could maybe brace through the pain of running if he had to.

"I did," the man says, lifting a black coat from the stand by the window and shrugging it on. "Told Jimmy this morning that I'm a difficult man to find a flatmate for and here he is straight after lunch with an old friend clearly returned from making a documentary in Afghanistan."

He turns on the balls of his feet, somewhat graceful despite his height and general gangly limbs. He's pulling on a scarf, looping it around his neck with a kind of flair that Phil suspects is to show off how good it looks. And it does, not that he wants to admit that.

"Wasn't a difficult leap." 

Phil schools his face into stoicism. His perfect poker face, much practised and well maintained. No one ever guessed his hands in the army barracks, no one ever got information out of him he didn't want to give, and this guy has no idea how many ways he could snap him in two if he needed to. 

"How did you know about Afghanistan?" 

The question is ignored entirely in favour of the guy fishing in his pocket and glancing at a phone he'd insisted only moments ago was out of signal. 

"I've got my eye on a nice little place in central London," he informs Phil, who wonders if he's temporarily blacking out parts of this conversation, or whether it's only taking place in this guy's head, because Phil is sure there should be more to it that this. "Together we should be able to afford it. We'll meet there tomorrow evening seven o'clock. Sorry I've got to dash, I think I left my riding crop in the mortuary." 

Phil's mad now. The guy has one hand on the door handle when he finally snaps. 

"Is that it?" 

"Is that what?" the guy dances back, twirling slightly, his coat spinning around him. He's quite the spectacle, one Phil would only like to appreciate if he wasn't so damn infuriating. 

"We've only just met and we're going to go look at a flat?" 

It's those instincts he's picked up, he tells himself, that's why he's so annoyed. It's not that this man in particular, with his curly hair and his deep brown eyes and the stupid dimple Phil thinks he can see popping his cheek as he talks, is getting under his skin. 

Jimmy offers no support when Phil glances at him, simply shrugs his shoulders. 

"Problem?" 

The smile on Phil's face is incredulous, not amused. Definitely not amused. He can remain stoic, he can. 

"We don't know a thing about each other, I don't know where we're meeting. I don't even know your name." 

The man smiles. It's slow and seems to creep onto his face. Phil was right, there is a dimple. 

What follows is nothing short of spectacular. Deep brown eyes level on Phil's face, setting him with the kind of stare Phil thinks might be frightening to a regular person. Not to him though, not with the things he's seen. 

"I know you're a documentary film maker recently invalided home from Afghanistan, I know you've got a brother who's worried about you but you won't go to him for help, and I know that your therapist thinks your limp is psychosomatic, quite rightly I'm afraid." He trails off a little at the end but not before adding, in a bored tone, "That's enough to be going on with, don't you think?" 

Phil is livid. It was impressive, sure, the way he'd reeled off facts so casually. But there was no way he could know all of that _how_ did he know all of that? He's mostly mad because he knows he’ll have to find out, this is one of those things he isn't going to let slide. 

"The name is Dan Howell," he's saying, halfway out of the door, "and the address is 221b Baker Street."

He winks. The bastards winks at him, and Phil can't do anything other than stand there rooted to the spot as the door swings shut behind the lanky idiot and he disappears from view. 

The most he can do is turn to Jimmy who is resting nonchalantly on a nearby desk. "Yeah," Jimmy says, "He's always like that."

* * *

**2019**

"I solved the case," Dan says. 

He sits down in the chair opposite Phil's, his movements far more graceful than Phil's who always manages to be clumsy no matter what. His hair is a mess, a riot of curls stuck up at odd angles like he's been running his hands through it over and over. 

"Oh, so this is more of a i'm-so-bored-I'm-going-to-torture-the-poor-piano sulk, rather than a stuck-on-a-case one." 

"I don't sulk," Dan says. 

Phil smirks at him, book still in his hands, "Sure you don't," he says, and looks back down at the page. 

Dan doesn't let the silence linger for too long. He never does, of course, he can't bear for there to be quiet when he could be filling it with the sound of his own brilliance. 

"It was the gardener." 

Phil looks up, "Was it really?" 

"Do you want to know how he did it?" 

"It's four in the morning," Phil tells him, "I want to be asleep." 

"Were you always this boring?" Dan asks, raising a solitary eyebrow. 

"Yes," Phil tells him, "you just didn't used to take no for an answer." 

"Do I now?"

* * *

**2016**

Much later, Dan explained how he came up with all of that stuff. How Phil's tan and his haircut were practically a glowing sign to his military service, and his phone gave Dan everything he needed to know about Phil's relationship with his brother. He did get it wrong though, the inscription on Phil's phone from Martyn to Cornelia wasn't old, it wasn't something Martyn got rid of because they broke up. 

Martyn is just a good person, and he'd give Phil anything he needed, regardless of the cost. 

Which is exactly why Phil doesn't ask him. 

They sit in a restaurant on the heels of a killer, and Phil is swept up into a world so exciting that he feels that old familiar rush of adrenaline coursing through him. It's how he feels with a camera in his hand, the way his blood pounds as he chases down a story. 

"Do you have a girlfriend then?" Phil says. 

He doesn't know if it's brave, or stupid. Especially after that thing with the ominous guy earlier, the one that called himself Dan's arch enemy. But staring into the eyes of that man, his cropped dark hair and sharp suit, Phil had felt steadier and in more control than he had in months. 

"A girlfriend?" Dan says, "No. Not really my area." 

Phil tries not to let the leap of joy show on his face at that, "Boyfriend then? Which is fine by the way." 

"I know it's fine." 

Dan's response is too quick, too defensive. It tells Phil everything he needs to know. 

"So you're unattached," Phil says, "Like me. That's…" 

He trails of. He doesn't know what that is, actually. 

"Look, Phil, I want you to know that I consider myself married to my work and while I’m flattered by your interest, I’m really not looking for any—" 

"No," Phil interrupts him, shame and embarrassment swirling in the pit of his stomach alongside the other heady expectation. "No I'm not asking. I'm just saying it's _all_ fine." 

Just then, Dan is distracted by something out of the window and soon enough, Phil finds himself running alongside him through dark streets, breathing heavily, watching as Dan winds his way easily around corners as if he knows the layout of the streets without having to consult Google maps. 

It doesn't prove entirely fruitful. But Phil is breathless and happy by the time they are back in the hallway of Baker Street, and as they lean against the wall, their heads beside each other, Phil thinks that he might have kissed him then. 

If it wasn't for the doorbell. 

The doorbell and the revelation that he'd left his walking stick, and therefore his limp, behind him in the restaurant. 

When Phil turned to look at Dan, he knew he wanted to see that smile every day for the rest of his life.

* * *

**2019>/b>**

"You have been this stubborn for the entire time I've known you," Phil tells him. 

He can tell that Dan is trying to keep the pride out of his expression. He uncrosses his legs, and then crosses them back the other way. 

"And you have always been this boring," Dan tells him. 

Boring is one of those things that he calls Phil that he doesn't mean. When he uses for other people, like Tyler who works with DI Liguouri at Scotland Yard as in forensics, he really means it. But when he calls Phil boring, or an idiot, he says with such a tone that indicates he means the exact opposite. 

It's always been like that. But then, Phil has always been different to Dan, it just took a while before Phil really understood that.

* * *

**2017**

"Don't make people into heroes," Dan tells him. His voice is cold, there is a timer on their actions, lives on the line, and Phil just wants him to care about that. "Heroes don't exist and if they did I wouldn't be one of them." 

The phone pings, and the case continues. 

Phil remains angry at him. He knew, at the time, that Dan wasn't going to change, and he could accept that they were completely different people. Phil fought a war, he documented it, because he _cares_, because he needed to do something to ease the ache in his chest at the thought of people suffering. But Dan dedicates his life to solving crimes for the sheer pleasure of it, because he likes the game. 

Later, by the pool, Phil has the distinct impression that this might be the end for him. He's stared death in the face before, and it doesn't scare him as much as it used to, he only has the passing regret that he never told Dan that he'd always be a hero to him anyway. 

Because whether or not he realises it, Dan saved his life. 

He saves it again that day. He rips a bomb from Phil's chest, down on his knees like he wants to shield him from the blast if he can. His hands are in his hair, curls askew underneath all of that primness in his clothing. Phil can see it in his eyes, the careful way he tries to mask what lies behind those warm, gold-flecked pupils, he cares. He cares about Phil.

Even though caring about him won't save him. 

That day was the beginning of the end, the slow slide into hell brought on by a mad devil with the same lust for criminality that Dan had for thwarting it. 

_Sean Mcloughlin_. At least, that's the name he's going by these days, an Irish accent and a sharp suit, with just enough wit to match Dan line for line. There's a spark in Dan's expression, a kind of satisfaction at finding a suitable opponent after all this time. 

Phil won't pretend that doesn't make him feel small and insignificant. But Dan cares, his eyes are full of it. Sean walks away, and Dan rips the vest from Phil's body, slinging it away from them while Phil breathes on the floor. 

For a heady, wonderful minute, Phil thought it was over. 

But he came back.

* * *

**2019**

"And yet you keep me around," Phil says. 

Dan's long fingers are curled around the arm of his sleek black armchair. It's a minimal thing, alongside all the clutter of their flat, a nod to the sparse design aesthetic Dan might enjoy if he wasn't so sentimental. 

And he is sentimental, whatever he professes to be. Why else would he still have Phil's cane in the corner of the room, Phil's dog tags around his neck. Why else would the phone from that series of bombings, the ones where Phil first saw that he was capable of this kind of emotion for the first time, be slipped in between two books on their shelves. 

"It's better than talking to myself, I suppose," Dan says. The corner of his mouth twitches, and Phil doesn't believe him one bit. 

He can read all of those little tells by now. The way Dan's leg is shaking because he has all of this thrummed up energy that need expelling somewhere. The piano has taken a pounding, because that's what he does, but it isn't quite enough.

Phil puts down the book once and for all and looks over at him with a determination. "Do you want to go out for coffee?" 

"Why would I do that?" 

"You need a walk." 

"I am not a dog, Phil." 

Phil smiles ruefully, "No," he says, "Dogs come back when you call them."

Dan stands. One elegant lines from his feet to the top of his head, and goes in search of shoes. He comes back, shrugging into a black coat with deep pockets and a high collar. 

Baker Street is full of memories. Not all of them good.

* * *

**2017**

"Hello?" 

"Phil." 

Phil is out of the taxi and heading towards the building. "Hey, Dan, you okay?" 

He doesn't know what's going on, only that it's bad, only that he has to get to Dan because as long as they are together they can figure out what comes next. Phil moves from one thing to the next, riding the adrenaline, the danger, and Dan has always been there for the other bit, the smart bit. 

"Turn around and walk back the way you came, now." 

Phil shakes his head, "No. I'm coming in." 

Dan's voice sounds frantic, words too quick, his tone clipped. "Just do as I ask. Please." 

Dan cares about him. He must do, and Phil has to trust him, even after everything, he has to. He turns around, going back the way he came even though it makes no sense. "Where?" 

There has to be some method to this madness. Something in this whole chain of events that Phil just isn't getting, something bigger, cooked up by two mad geniuses on either side of the law. 

Dan doesn't respond, for a second, until he says, "stop there. And Phil does.

"Dan?" 

"Okay," Dan says, "look up, I'm on the rooftop."

That's when the dread starts. The pounding of Phil's heart in his chest. It all floods through him as he looks up to see Dan on the edge of that rooftop. The sky is a dull grey, the sun isn't too bright so he's got a clear view. Dan's long black coat flaps in the wind, creating an arch and a circle he remembers from that first day at Bart's. And here they are, back again.

"Oh God." 

"I… I... " Dan pauses, just a fraction, before he continues, "I can't come down, so we'll… we'll just have to do it like this." 

"What's going on?" 

_Just tell me_ Phil thinks. _Just tell me what's going on and we can fix this, together. You care about me, and I care about you. The rest doesn't matter._

"An apology. It's all true." 

"What?" 

Phil stares up at him, unable to tear his eyes away even though it hurts to look. It hurts to think about something like this. He's seen friends die, he's seen them on battlefields, framed in his camera, but he isn't documenting this one. He isn't even thinking about talking about it on a vlog the way that he does will all the other cases. 

He just stares up and Dan and wills him to say something that makes sense. 

"Everything they said about me. I invented Sean." 

Phil shakes his head, mostly to himself because he isn't sure that Dan can see the features of his face from this distance. "Why are you saying this?" 

"I'm a fake," Dan insists.

"Dan…" 

Phil wants this to stop. Dan is perilously close to the edge of that building, Phil can see the underneath of the tip of his shoe. His hair is ruffled by the wind, he is flesh and blood and bone, his heart beats and he _cares_ about Phil. He does. 

Phil thinks he hears proof of this in Dan's next words, like they're being forced out around a bundle of something in the back of his throat, choked and sparse. 

"The newspapers were right all along. I want you to tell Liguouri; I want you to tell Mrs Pentland, and Chris… In fact, tell anyone who will listen to you that I created Sean for my own purposes." 

He's too insistent, too desperate. Something doesn't add up but Phil can't see anything beyond the words, beyond the face of it, so he can't work out what it is. They only thing he can do is stare into such a lie and argue against it. 

His own words are choked now, his own eyes string. 

"Okay shut up," he says, "Dan, shut up. The first time we met…. The _first time we met_, you knew about my brother, right?"

"Nobody could be that clever." There's a rueful laugh, and Phil thinks back to telling Dan is is clever. That day, and all the days since. So clever. 

"You could." 

There's that laugh again. Wet, and crackling, followed by a sniff. 

"I researched you," Dan says, like a man giving up, "before we met. I discovered everything I could to impress you." 

Phil shakes his head, even though Dan can't see. Dan breathes down the phone. 

"It's a trick," Dan says, "Just a magic trick."

Phil has to close his eyes. It's the first time he's looked away, but he has to give himself some respite, just for a second. This can't be happening, it can't. 

"No. Alright, stop it now." Phil strides forward. He's had enough of this, he's going in there to put an end to it once and for— 

"No," Dan says, stay exactly where you are, don't move."

Phil thinks he can see Dan move, suddenly, so he holds his hand out, like he might reach across the distance for him, hold him steady. 

"All right," he says, keeping his voice soothing. 

Dan reaches out too, his empty palm hovering over all of that empty air, the height and space between them. The threat of it. 

"Keep your eyes fixed on me," Dan says, "Please." 

Phil listens to him breathe. He is alive, he's still alive. 

"Will you do this for me?" 

"Do what?" Phil says. _Anything, I'll do anything. Just make this stop._

"This phone call… it's, uh… It's my note. It's what people do, don't they? Leave a note?"

Phil has to move the phone away from his ear. He shakes his head, to Dan, to the sky, to whatever it is out there who might be watching. The God forsaken universe, uncaring and unfeeling, who would make a man like Dan who feels so much without knowledge of how to express it. 

"Leave a note when?" he asks. _Please don't mean what I think you mean._

"Goodbye, Phil." 

Phil shakes his head again, "No. Don't." 

Dan's hand isn't outstretched anymore. He isn't reaching across the distance, he's chucked his phone behind him and Phil can only watch as this nightmare unfolds. 

"No!" He yells, "DAN!" 

Dan spread his arms, takes a step forward and—

* * *

**2019**

"What?" Dan says. 

He's in side coat, standing in the middle of their living room. Phil doesn't know if it's the late hour, or the lack of sleep, but all he can see is that coat flapping like wings as Dan tumbled through the air. 

"Nothing," Phil says. 

Dan narrows his eyes. He's told Phil time and time again that he can't read minds, that no one can, but half the time Phil isn't sure that he isn't. Because he'll narrow his eyes, see something in Phil that tells him exactly what is going on, and that will be that. 

"Coffee isn't going to solve this one," Dan says. 

He takes the coat off. At this point, the memory is playing in Phil's head anyway so he doesn't need the visual reminder to take him through it. Still, he's glad when Dan bundles it into a ball and chucks it in the direction of his bedroom. 

They still have two because it makes sense, overall. 

Dan reaches into the kitchen cupboard and pulls out a bottle of the good stuff that Anthony left them last year. He's a dramatic bloke, the type that pulled Phil into an empty warehouse by way of first greeting, and proclaimed himself Dan's arch enemy rather than just as a concerned brother, but he does buy good whiskey. 

Dan takes the bottle, and two mismatched glasses to the couch, and pats the seat beside him. Phil goes easily, sinking down next to him and taking the glass when it's offered to him. He sips it, feeling the warmth of it burn his throat and sing through his veins. 

It isn't quite enough to make the pictures go away, to forget what it was like to kneel at the side of Dan's body, dazed and desperate, but it helps. 

"Do I need to apologise once again?" Dan says. 

He's a long elegant line, resting back against the cushions. His leg has stopped shaking, and the more acute madness in his eyes had died down. For now, they are trained on Phil's face, moving in minute gestures every now and again as if tracking signs of Phil's responses.

"No," Phil says, a weak smile on his mouth. 

"Perhaps…" Dan tugs on his sleeve. 

The movement is almost timid, and Phil has learned that Dan will never ask for these things - not that Phil is any better in that department - but he will quietly nudge them in that direction. 

Phil leans back, their shoulders pressed together. Dan is warm despite being up half the night playing piano in little more than his pyjamas. He always runs warm, the heat of his body kept going by the furnace of his overactive mind. Phil sometimes wants to hold him still, to slow him down, but knows doing that would be like caging something wild. 

He in untameable, and Phil would never seek to tame him. 

"I did come back," Dan says. 

He's looking down into the amber liquid. They've had this conversation multiple times over the last year, and Phil likes to think that they've moved on, that it is behind them. But every so often, Phil will remember like its something from his army days. Another friend covered in blood, another loved one lost, leaving behind an image that sticks with him. 

How often do you get a second chance like that? 

"I know," Phil says. 

"And you understand that it was the only way—" 

"Yes." Phil says. He places his hand on Dan's arm, because that is a thing that he is allowed to do, however new and novel it all is. 

This isn't like the old days, it is distinctly different in all the ways that count. And the same in the others. 

"I know all of that," Phil says. "It's fine. I'm just tired." 

"I came back," Dan repeats. "I always come back. You know my methods, I'm known to be indestructible." 

Phil smiles, and his fingers thread into Dan's.

* * *

**Early 2019**

Phil had punched him. 

It wasn't the right thing to do, but it's what happened. After, be blames it on adrenaline, shock, his old army defenses kicking in, but the truth is just that he was so fucking angry. 

"Two years," he says. 

In the restaurant, Dan had apologised, only once. Now he's got a bloody nose which is no less than he deserves. Still, the sight of blood on Dan's face isn't a thing Phil wants to see. 

Phil had made an odd groaning noise in this throat, covering his face with his hands for a brief second so that he could just, _breathe_. 

"You made me believe you were dead," Phil says, "You let me grieve. How could you do that?" 

Dan doesn't answer. He has a look on his face like he's only just understanding that this might not have been the best way to go about things. 

"How?" Phil repeats. 

Dan looks like he wants to remain flippant, and that's when Phil had hit him. 

They're down the street in one of those all night cafes with the too-harsh lighting, the type of place that feel suspended in time, stagnant and stark. 

"I calculated there were thirteen possibilities once I was up on the roof—" 

"You know, for a genius you're remarkably thick," Phil says. 

"What?" 

"I don't care _how_ you faked it, Dan. I want to know _why_."

Phil puts his hand flat on the table, and Dan sighs. "Why? Because Sean had to be stopped—" he pauses, cutting himself off at the expression on Phil's face. He lifts a hand and points at PHil. "You you mean Why as in…. I see. 'Why'. That's a little more difficult to explain." 

"I've got all night," Phil says. 

Dan clears his throat and he looks down at the table. "Actually, that was mostly Anthony's idea." 

"Oh," Phil says, suddenly madder than he had been, "So it's your brother's plan?" Phil clenches his fist against the table top and breathes out through his nose, "was he the only one that knew?" 

Dan closes his eyes, and forces the next sentence out of a thin breath. "Couple of others." 

Phil drops his gaze. He doesn't want to be here. Dan is back on the other side of a table, broad and alive, his hair a little shorter but nonetheless as lovely as it had always been and the things is… the thing is that losing him had brought up all kinds of things for Phil. 

Things he swore to himself he would say if he ever had the chance, and now here Dan is. Who gets a second chance like that? 

"It was a very elaborate plan," Dan says, "It had to be." 

"Who else?" The question is no more than a whisper. "Who else knew?" 

Dan hesitates, his pink lips parting, the pointed tip of his tongue pressing against the inside of his mouth.

"Who else?" Phil repeats. 

"Chris." 

"Chris?" 

"Chris. And some of the homeless guys I know. But that's all." 

"Oh that's _all_." Phil says. 

_We used to tell each other everything_ Phil wants to say, _I trusted you, I cared for you, I loved--"_

"One word," Phil says, "One word is all it would have taken. That's all I would have needed, just one word to let me know you were alive." 

Phil stands up. He can't sit at this table now, not with the blood pumping in his ears, the blood on Dan's face red and vivid and calling back over two years. His steps echo in the brightly lit cafe and he can hear the gentle pad of Dan's feet behind him. 

Back out on the street, Dan's face is lit on one side by the orange glow of a street lamp, and on the other by the lights from the shops. 

"I've nearly been in contact so many times," Dan says, "but…"

Phil barks out a laugh, disbelievingly. 

"I worried that, you know, you might say something…" 

"What?" 

"Well, you know, you might let the cat out of the bag." 

"Oh," Phil says, taking a step forward, whether because he intends to punch him again or because he's just being pulled into Dan's orbit once again, he doesn't know. "So this is my fault?" 

"Phil…" 

"Why come back then?" Phil asks, "Let me guess. There's a case, and you're here to talk me into some mad-cap scheme because that's all I'm good for, right? To follow you around and tell you you're brilliant and—" 

Phil often dreamt of kissing Dan in the months after he was gone. He talked it over with his therapist, in videos he never posted, and he dreamt about it most nights, about all the ways that he would do it differently if he was given the chance. 

In all of those scenarios, all of them, Phil is the one to step into Dan's space, to tilt his chin upward and kiss him. He expected Dan to react with a mixture of surprise, shock, and possibly disgust depending on how nice Phil's fantasies were being to him at the time. 

But it was never like this. 

It was never Dan cupping Phil's jaw in his large, board palm, never him sliding his mouth hot and wet over Phil's and breathing in the very air from his lungs. 

"Wha—" Is all Phil can manage afterwards. 

"I came back," Dan says, "As soon as I could I…" 

He shakes his head, out of words. He's still in Phil's space, and Phil's head is still tilted at a convenient angle so that Dan can lean in once again and press a kiss to his mouth.

Phil likes to think himself an independent man. Life has sent him too many misfortunes for him to be wont to rely on anyone, but here in Dan's arms he feels as though the world could drop out from under his feet and Dan will be the one holding him up. 

"Anthony wanted me to stay away longer. He said it wasn't safe, but I… I did things, Phil, things I'm not proud of. But it's over, I'm back." 

A hot tear escapes the corner of Phil's eye and he sniffs stubbornly, holding it back. He refuses to do that here, in the tight circle of their shared breathing. Dan cares about him, and Phil cares for him oh so much. 

"It's always just you against the world, huh?" 

"No," Dan says, "it's us." 

Phil breathes, and he rocks forward onto the balls of his feet to kiss Dan, to initiate it himself as if to prove that he can. 

"What now?" Phil asks. 

"Now?" Dan says, "Let's go home."

* * *

** later in 2019**

"Come on," Phil says. 

He tugs on Dan's hand, rising from the couch with a determination that means Dan has no choice but to follow him. 

"I don't want to go out for coffee, Phil," Dan informs him. 

"No," Phil says, "Nor me." 

"Then where are we going?" 

Phil notices that Dan doesn't stop following him, regardless of whether he knows their destination or not. Dan cares for him, but more importantly than that, he trusts him. 

"To bed," Phil says, "It's four in the morning and that piano deserves a rest. As do I." 

"But Phil," Dan says, "I won't be able to sleep." 

"Who said anything about sleeping?" Phil says. 

He cocks an eye at Dan, and watches the flush on his cheeks. It had been something he had been pleased to find out, just how easily Phil can break down this giant genius, bring him to his knees both metaphorically and sometimes literally, just by the sheer force of himself. 

Martyn thinks he's an idiot for taking Dan back after everything, and Anthony is shocked beyond belief that Dan would want to do anything as common as fall in _love_ of all things, but then they've never been conventional. 

"I don't have friends," Dan had told him once, "I've just got one." 

And Phil has to admit that for all his casual socialising, the world often feels like that for him too. 

Dan and Phil against the world, companions through life, actual soul mates.

They are stuck somewhere between head and heart, and this may not be the best idea, or the wisest one, but rationality aside Phil can't deny that he's the happiest he's ever been.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[art] In a Changing Age](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22588726) by [JudeAraya](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JudeAraya/pseuds/JudeAraya)


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